“An entertaining and thought-provoking talk on how important it is to know what we don’t know.”
Described as a “Statistical national treasure”, Sir David Spiegelhalters talk at the Oxford playhouse involved a number of themes from his book “The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck”, discussing the importance of understanding what we don’t know when trying to talk about what we do know. Accompanied with a powerpoint presentation that reminded me of a fun university lecture, the evening balanced statistical and philosophical methods with personal anecdotes and everyday examples, providing an experience which was both fun and informative.
The talk began with the definition “Uncertainty is the conscious awareness of ignorance”, and from there covered topics from the different types of luck to the dangers of over-confidence and the importance of trustworthiness when communicating to a wider audience. Sprinkled in were a number of real-world examples and audience participation to demonstrate just how impactful uncertainty can be on our lives.
One of the things that pushed this from purely informative to entertaining was the tone Spiegelhalter kept throughout the talk. Rather than being cynical about the public’s (generally poor) understanding of statistics or spreading fear about our lack of knowledge, he treated uncertainty as something almost beautiful, reminding us that admitting we don’t know isn’t weakness but the start of a better understanding.
The talk was very well delivered and at a level that I feel most people would understand – there was no overwhelming us with mathematical theories or complicated thought experiments – but it did require a level of concentration that felt more like a university lecture than a fun night out. The examples used were accessible, using everyday items such as shuffled cards and flipped coins, but with a little bit of mathematical trivia and trickery to keep the talk entertaining as well as educational. Rather than presenting an hour of straight statistics, Spiegelhalter focused on our relationship with uncertainty,
showing us how our everyday decisions really only rely on partial knowledge, and how our intuition can easily mislead us.
The only downside for me was that the Q&A session was short, as I feel like a longer discussion with the audience would have brought up additional interesting topics. This was the sort of talk that leaves you with far more questions than you have answers, but after all that was the point – to make us aware of our uncertainty and how important it is to address.
Coming out of this, I feel like every person in the audience will be have at least one topic or idea stuck in their head for a while: for me, the idea of “deep” uncertainty – that there are situations where can’t even begin to know what we don’t know – was simultaneously confusing, terrifying, and exciting, and will definitely affect the way I think from now on, hopefully for the better.